10th October
St Paulinus of York’s Day
St Paulinus. Source: Catholic Saints website
Today is St Paulinus of York’s Day. Paulinus was a seventh century missionary and the first Bishop of York. He also performed the most pointless miracle of early Christianity. Paulinus was riding an ass near Caistor in Lincolnshire when he realised his humble steed was suffering greatly from hunger. The saint spotted a farmer carrying a large sack of grain. When Paulinus asked for a little of the man’s crop for his ass, the farmer scornfully told him that the sack was in fact a stone. ‘So be it’ replied the unimpressed bishop and in front of the horrified farmer’s eyes, his sack was transformed into a large stone. Paulinus probably felt vindicated but his ass stayed hungry.
The so-called Sack Stone still stands in a Lincolnshire field. In its time it had mystical powers, famously resisting all attempts to move it. In the nineteenth century, a mason seeking to purpose the stone in the building of Pelham’s Pillar, fell off it and broke his neck. In 1914 the Sack Stone ominously split into three pieces days before the First World War started. It has been quiet ever since.